Lights that Lead Us There (Back to Calling You)
by tristelamar
Summary: Hermione is not one to forgive such a break in trust easily. A story about how Ron begins to thaw Hermione's corners again after he returns to searching for Horcruxes. A missing moment from Book 7.


Lights that Lead Us There (Back to Calling You)

Something told me it wouldn't be long at all.

Harry's never been one to go back and forth between you and me, brokering for a truce, but he's grown up since we started this search. Grown more focused and intense. Grown to know the weight and advantages of peace.

So it's not a surprise when Harry nods and says, "I'm going to take a kip, all right? You two keep watch." Still, I expected at least a day to earn even a little bit of perspective before we reached this particular juncture.

Life has already been graceful enough to grant us the mercy of getting you two to do away with one of the Horcruxes. Asking for _this_ as well, - well, that'd have been rather too much to get, wouldn't it?

He doesn't blush in the clear light of the afternoon, doesn't falter before standing up. And yet it's obvious what he's doing.

I almost agree.

I _would_ agree, if I could.

But that's not the case: agreeing would mean that I'm ready to start forgiving, somewhat poised on the edge of taking the steps that would lead me back to trusting you.

Which I'm not.

Which I'm sometimes almost too certain I never will be again.

So instead of extending any sort of olive branch, I don't even look at you as I stand, my heart constricted with fury and my throat nearly closed up. Which is to say: I go back to my usual state since your unexpected return.

* * *

"I am going -... I will take a walk."

"Why? It could be danger-"

"I don't know if your time away has fogged your brain,"- a pettier part of her compelled her to keep from adding the 'Ron' that would have naturally fallen at the end of the sentence. It was silly, and something that kindled her boiling rage like little else could, but calling Ron by his name felt terribly private now, after the Deluminator had picked up on her voice rolling over the word to guide him back.

Hermione had refrained from calling Ron that since he'd explained how he'd managed to locate them. - "but, my Privacy and Security Spells are quite efficient, thank you. I plan to stay within their reach."

She didn't let her gaze stray to him, not wanting to look at him even if it was to measure the effect of the verbal jabs she'd thrown in his direction. Turning, she searched for what promised to be the most secure path and started walking, inwardly ordering herself to make her steps as natural and easy, as far away from stumping, as possible.

It was a bitter winter, the one they were going through. Blankets of thick snow everywhere. Sometimes Hermione caught herself wanting to look to either side to see if there was a pack of Dementors nearby. But then she remembered that the spells she'd put up were definitely designed to detect the powerful Dementor presence, that they'd have been set off if one or many of the dark creatures happened to glide across her magical barriers.

Her breath went out in staccato puffs, turning into thick clouds as she advanced. She had managed natural, easy, and un-stumping before him, but now her steps were as fast as the forest would allow, a very small _push_ away from the stumping she'd avoided. Head bowed, she didn't stop, didn't think as she trounced over pristine flakes.

Barely registered the path below her turning into a frozen stream before she walked two steps over ice.

The world tilted so all Hermione was looking at were cold, grey skies. Her body made a sickening crunching sound as it made contact with the ground, the feel of skin breaking on a rock, of blood starting to flow unmistakable through the haze of suddenness.

"Oh. Bloody. Hell."

~oOo~

Something was wrong. Something was so fucking wrong.

He had called for her seconds ago, the moment he heard that awful thud, its quality still loud despite the distance. She wasn't actually speaking to him, but still, Hermione wouldn't be so cruel as to not answer, not when the range of possibilities was so terrifying.

Ordering himself to keep a reasonable head over his shoulders, to not go around the twist just yet, he kept up as he was since he heard the sound: running over the track she'd left behind. He followed the footsteps as they curved around one side of a tree and continued left.

And then he stopped moving. Stopped reasoning. Stopped breathing.

Hermione lay on her back some yards away, utterly still, a trail of snow turned dark red to her right, near her shoulder.

Ron found himself running impossibly faster than he had been moments ago. He pushed his body to its limits, the whole world blurring to either side of him, Hermione on the ground ahead the one constant guiding his efforts.

It could be they were not alone, that things were in reality worse than they seemed. Could be that someone or perhaps many were waiting in the wings, halting before they pounced to finish her off. Because she wasn't- _couldn't be_ d-

He started looking left and right as he continued stealing distance in huge, desperate steps that didn't seem to be enough, his wand kept up chest-high, at the ready, spells meant to maim or kill forcefully pulled to the forefront of his conscious as he pushed and cut against the bitterly cold wind.

… _Please don't let her have stopped breathing. Please don't let her have stopped breathing. Please don't let her have stopped breathing_…

He reached her almost as fast as if he'd managed an Apparition. Almost, and yet not quite. Nothing could really top the speed of Apparating, and if he'd lost precious time he could have spent in helping her because he wasn't wizard enough to pull Apparating off or to even think of it before he'd started running, he would ...would- would fucking-

His train of thought stopped dead on its tracks and turned over as Hermione opened her eyes, her gaze focusing steadily on him.

_Oh, thanks. __**Fuck**__, thanks thanks thanks thanks so __**very**__ much_.

He might have been shaking, -forget that, he _knew _he was. His legs felt rubbery under him, a telltale sign, and his heartbeat, turned Firebolt-fast and as insistent, rang fiercely in his ears.

That stare was too sharp, and it became too pointedly bordered with hostility. "Of course," Hermione said, her tone and the sarcastic remark further convincing him that the assessment he'd made because of her look was the right one: she was too aware and clever, too much like herself to have somehow lost any of her mental faculties.

Looking down at her, Ron wanted to do something as poncy as faint with relief. Instead, he focused on the wretched options still left to cross off his mental list. "Was it a Dea-" He was walking as he talked, stopping when he was level with one of her knees.

Hermione blinked, blushing a little as she cut over him, "No. I... -I fell."

_Thanks. __**Fuck**__, thanks thanks thanks thanks so __**very**__ much_. He swallowed through the hard knot which had lodged firmly within his throat, nodded at her. "Do you think- Can you move?" _**Please**__ this. __**Please**__ this as well_.

She breathed in, gloriously and comfortingly let her breath back out. "I have, a little: my fingers, my toes. But there's a rock under my shoulder blade. The prospect of fully moving hasn't seemed all that appealing, really."

She was in pain and that was awful, but she was also not too badly hurt. And to that he could only respond with a loud, inward whoop of: _Fuck, yes_.

"I'll help," he offered, feeling more connected to himself now that he knew the situation wasn't truly dire.

Without pausing, he shifted, swung his leg out and landed it so he was framing her, feet to either side of her before he lowered himself down until he was kneeling, one of his knees beside each of Hermione's thighs. He made certain to not even come close to touching her, the idea of putting weight on her pained body past stomach-turning.

Leaning forward, he looped his arms under hers and _pulled up_, making sure to use his forearm high by her upper right arm, making it so he didn't go any nearer to her shoulder blade than he needed to.

He was able to recognize the moment in which Hermione dislodged from the rock by her response: she hissed, the loud, feral echo of it reaching inside Ron, freezing the blood in his veins and making him _hurt_ with it.

Finding his voice was rather difficult in the wake of the sound. "Do you think...-d'you think you can stand now?" He asked, turning a little with the question, the instinctive, innocent motion getting him to almost nuzzle her neck. He'd probably _be_ nuzzling her, her wonderfully smooth, creamy skin, if it weren't for the thick mass of gorgeous hair like a fluffy veil between them.

_Bloody hell_, so long since the last time he'd been close to her in any real way.

Ron wasn't surprised as a ruthless, rather dishonorable part of himself urged him to take advantage, to breathe in and fill his lungs with her scent, nice and clean despite the lack of proper accommodations. She knew the sort of magic to keep herself in such a state, even in the wilderness. All the while, his more chivalrous side pulled Ron in a radically opposite direction, pointing out that it _would be_ taking advantage, that she was hurt, still very angry at him on top of that. That it wouldn't be on.

It wasn't that his ruthless, rather dishonorable streak won. Exactly.

It was that perhaps he was once again mislabelling things, that what he meant by "ruthless" and "rather dishonorable" was instead a case of being only human.

And he couldn't be sure, but perhaps Ron wasn't alone in his humanity. As he hovered near, breathing air suffused with the scent of her, Hermione hissed once more, a different ring to it than the last. A small sound, like it'd been wrenched from her rather than let out willingly. It made Ron wonder and remain close a moment longer, hope flaring raw and sudden within his chest like it had yesterday, when he'd followed the Deluminator back to Harry, to her.

_Stop it, Weasley_, he wordlessly warned, attempting to make his inner voice sound something like McGonagall's crisp tones when Ron made an unthinking mistake. That had always seemed to manage the trick before whenever Ron had found himself in a certain sort of situation.

But it wasn't like... he'd never really _had_ a situation like his current one: the witch he was over in love with in his arms, that after him having done something so very close to _admitting_ only the day before.

_Wounded. Angry. Stop it, Weasley_.

"I can." If she'd been affected in any way at all before, it didn't come up in her voice.

Her answer finished the job his thoughts had begun: he pulled off the hard feat of jogging out of it, snapping his attention back to the task of getting her mended and back to near as perfect as one could get.

He recalled that standing would be nearly impossible for her with him almost trapping her like he was, so he slowly, very slowly, let go of her. Finding purchase on the ice, he pushed off, stood, thankful for the bulk of his winter clothes as he went, the spells woven nicely to seep warmth into all the fabric.

He offered her his hand.

Relief was the emotion of the afternoon. It flooded him again as she grabbed, drawing on him for balance as she got up slow but constant, wisely not trying to overexert herself.

Hermione dropped his hand as soon as she was vertical. Unsurprisingly, she returned to her set pattern of not looking at him, her jaw clenching as she settled on some mysterious point somewhere left of Ron's shoulder.

"Thanks," she said, her nostrils flaring.

He swallowed, a nervous current pulsing through him. Her stark return to icy and stiff would have been enough to get Ron's combativeness going under different circumstances. But he was still under the influence of seeing her on the ground, looking as though she was… -

_Not moving_, he amended before he'd finished the thought, unwilling to revisit that other possibility in any sort of manner at all.

Wanting and getting his voice to go soft, he nodded at her. "Hermione, you're being-"

Her eyes narrowed down to slits, and she was flaring her nostrils again. "Perfectly reasonable, you unbelievable toerag! You left! You left _him_! You left, -" she spilled over before cutting off, sucking in what sounded like a ragged breath, terror rippling unmistakable over her face as she stopped before she could add what Ron knew should come after.

_Say it. Just ...say it_.

She didn't.

Her snicker tore like a too sharp sword across the silence. "And the most amazing part is that you don't even _know_ what you've do-"

"Of _course_ I know, Hermione! Do you honestly think so little of me that you think I don't?" Soft was left a long way back. He wasn't screaming at her, but his tone was intent hard granite as it worked its way past his mouth.

Hermione visibly rallied for a response.

Seeing her readying propelled Ron to go on before she could, before he gave her the opportunity to confirm his deepest fears with either the truth or lies meant to hurt him.

It was Ron's turn to focus on some mysterious spot in the air, near the top of Hermione's cheek. He swallowed, the truth scratching up his throat a mere second later, "I walked out on something that affected a lot of people. On my best friend and one of the best persons I know. And I walked out on my other best friend, who _is_ the best person I know, and just happens to be the witch I'm mad ab -"

"Stop. Please," -she sounded tired. "Don't say things that… -Just... stop." She sounded so incredibly scared.

Inevitably, he went back to her, and, yeah: fear and exhaustion were both written on her sometimes closed-off features, the fear nearly as naked as the ripple from before but not quite reaching that.

She'd always found it harder when it was her turn to admit.

Biting her lip, she shook her head slowly.

For perhaps the millionth time in their long history, she was right: now was not the time for it, with her bleeding and still not having been tended to. Though he very much doubted that the issue of her wound had so much as flashed through Hermione's mind to get her to halt him on what he'd been telling her, and Ron was close to entirely convinced that she'd have stopped his words whatever the case..

Still, he couldn't keep from saying the part she'd pulled back from. It would only take a second, and he was... -it needed saying and it'd make things easier later, when he was working on fixing her broken skin.

"I walked out on _you_," he told her, simply, daringly pouring all of what was going on inside into his whisper.

She broke the stare she'd finally managed to fix on him as she'd asked him to stop. He reconsidered his impulsiveness, feeling just like the toerag she'd called him and worse as she ducked her head before biting her bottom lip for a second time, a set of reactions that put Ron on thoughts that she was folding in on herself somehow, receding into some sort of inner fortress it would take effort and then some to get past.

"Yes," she said, thin again, dropping the admission precisely, as though it were a card edged in dangerous steel, something it hurt to handle.

Her shoulders had gone very tense.

Ron kept his eyes on her, silently willing her to look into his face, to _see_. "And I've told you: I'm sorry. And I -just." He shook his head, ran a hand through his hair wildly. There was no way he could fit what he meant into a sentence or even a string of them, and, even if he could, he wasn't the articulate sort, so he wouldn't be the lucky sort of idiot to find the right thing to say.

He was talking in a too rough, low voice before he could stop himself. "If I could get hold of a fucking Time Turner...,- out of all the idiotic things I've done in my life, _this_ would be the one I'd undo, yeah?"

_At least it's honest_.

Long moments stretched, charged and spiky-feeling, Ron's whole being straining in the silence as he waited.

It must have not been so terrible a go after all, as, after a while, Hermione was nodding slightly.

Then she was looking up, her brilliant brown eyes holding his almost steadily. "You're certain about that?" she asked firmly, something approaching not-cold fighting to sneak into her voice.

He pulled a grin, inwardly urging her to smile with him, feeling a little uneasy when she didn't. "Not a doubt in my mind."

Still not grinning, she nodded again, looked down again. "Fine." After worrying on her lip for a third time, she went on, "I may be able to forgive you. At some point. In the fullness of time."

Ron's grin turned too wide. He was so glad despite her obvious reservations. He was past glad, damn ecstatic.

The relief he felt just now was different from all the reliefs he'd experienced since he'd discovered she was close to entirely fine. Less sweeping, more like a light turning slowly, surely back on.

Unable to stop himself, he chuckled, plunging ahead even as she fixed him with a warning look. "See? Now that's just being stubbornly impractical, Hermione. I mean, really, if you'd forgive me now, it'd make it much less awkward when I'm looking over your shoulder blade after we Apparate back." He felt himself blush slightly as he said it, but he pushed through.

She laughed, the quality of it reluctant, those eyes skidding away from him once again, and then she was rolling them in an exaggerated gesture. "You're dreaming if you think I'm going to let you look over my shoulder blade."

"And you're dreaming if you think you can keep me from it." He willed even the barest hint of humor from his face, jaw going tight as he tried his level best to convey exactly how strongly he felt on the point.

Watching as her shoulders returned to tense, though, he changed his approach, shrugging, - "Come on, I owe you one, I won't even…-I'll be a thorough gentleman and even make my thoughts clean, all right?"

Like it'd happened so many times over the past months, the past _years_ if he was being honest, everything narrowed down to the sight of Hermione. She looked away, shook her head.

He waited. Back to focused with his entire being as she considered.

What seemed like hours passed, but it only reached a little bit cruel, nothing as what she could have managed if she really felt like it.

Releasing a deep breath, she glanced at him before straying one last time. When she spoke, there was something that could have been like an unwilling grin hidden on some corner of her complicated tone, "All right, but only because I can't reach very well and I don't want Harry to worry, Ron."

* * *

You don't know what happened yesterday, Hermione. Can't know that the world tilted right on its strange head and changed entirely for me.

But, as you admit my arm around your waist, preparing to let me Apparate us back to our campsite, I'm smiling, knowing that I will.

Make it so that you know. Tell you someday ...and probably soon, that is.

Because you _have_ to know this.

It's not every day that someone understands something so important so clearly and so suddenly.

What I'll try to tell you is this: that yesterday... yesterday I became familiar with what is surely a revolutionary truth you must have discovered a long time ago, that heroic moments don't really change you. Not in the ways I'd always expected they would, at least.

That they don't make you see your hidden worth, or gift you with that extraordinary certainty Harry can carry about sometimes.

That it's rather the other way around.

That you make your life and that life pulls you toward the heroic, whatever those acts of heroism may be. That you draw on everyday moments to get there. Draw on the people you've surrounded yourself with and what you've built with them.

Draw on love.

My family and Harry and you. Most definitely you, are love to me.

So I hold on to the knowledge that you're back to able to say my name as I hold on to you, hold on to the informed guess of what it cost you to get back here again, -how it must surely mean something that it was such a struggle for you. And I hope …

I hope that whatever magic was at work when that Deluminator spilled your voice will keep on working indefinitely: you calling for me, and me always finding a way to get to you and answer.

~oOo~


End file.
